Venezuela's political crisis is reaching a breaking point

A
woman confronts a Bolivarian National Police officer during a
protest demanding food, a few blocks from Miraflores presidential
palace in Caracas, Venezuela, June 2, 2016.AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos

Social unrest has simmered in Venezuela for the last few years,
at times breaking out in widespread protests, and tensions have
mounted this year, as an opposition-led legislature leads an
effort to recall President Nicolas Maduro.

But a protest that broke out near the presidential palace in
Caracas on Thursday indicates that the strife has reached a
segment of the country critical to the government's popular
support.

A group of Venezuelans waiting in line at a supermarket in
Caracas made a run for Miraflores, the presidential palace,
after they saw what appeared to be people
affiliated with the government taking food they had been waiting
for hours in the heat to buy.

According to The Associated Press, over 100
people ran down the city's main street, chanting "No more talk.
We want food," before encountering riot police less than six
blocks from Miraflores.

The protesters clashed with the police, striking their shields,
as other Venezuelans leaned out of windows to yell insults at
police and bang pots. Police eventually deployed tear gas against
the demonstrators.

"We have needs, too. We all need to eat," Jose Lopez, a
23-year-old, told the AP. Lopez said he and other
demonstrators were neither supporters nor opponents of the
government, "just people trying to feed themselves."

Downtown Caracas, the area around the presidential palace, is
"territorio chavista," or government-supporter
territory, the government has said. Antigovernment protests are rare in
that area, the Latin America Herald Tribune noted. The AP called the demonstration a "rare, apparently
spontaneous outburst of anger."

"I'm protesting because we're tired of the lines, of not finding
products," another protester, 21-year-old Francis Marcano,
told AFP.

Jorge Rodriguez, the mayor of Caracas and ally of President
Maduro, said the protests was initiated by black-market vendors,
who resell scarce goods at what he called "blood prices." He said the government was
working to put them out of business. Chuo Torrealba, the
opposition leader of the National Assembly, said the protests were "a country
acting in self defense."

Children
cross the street amid security forces during a protest by people
demanding food, a few blocks from Miraflores presidential palace
in Caracas, Venezuela, June 2, 2016.AP Photo/Fernando Llano

Looting and attempted looting incidents have also risen this
year, from about 20 incidents in January to more than 70 in May,
according to a local nongovernment
organization.

But Thursday's protests seem to indicate that the government is
losing support among poor residents in and around the capital —
people it has long relied on for support. The opposition's
formal, organized marches tend to attract middle-class
Venezuelans, and tend to take place in middle-class areas of
the city.

A
woman kicks the shield of a National Guard soldier as other
demonstrators push during a protest demanding food, a few blocks
from Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, June
2, 2016.AP Photo/Ariana
Cubillos

Thursday's protests in the streets near Miraflores appeared
to be driven by a different group — poor Caraqueños, generally
considered to be governments supporters, who had spent hours waiting to buy food at subsidized
prices.

The lines, which have become commonplace in Venezuela in
recent years as the country's economic crisis inhibits the
government's ability to import food, exposes poor Venezuelans not
only to heat and hunger, but also makes them "easier
targets for violence," Alejandro Velasco, a professor at New York
University, told Business Insider in an
interview earlier this year about violence in
Caracas.

Shops closed in the capital Thursday as police clashed with
protesters, and opposition leaders, who are waiting on the National Electoral Commission
(CNE) to rule on signatures gathered in support of a presidential
recall referendum, have warned that Venezuela "faces an explosion of unrest" if the
referendum doesn't happen this year.

A
National Bolivarian Police officer rescues a man who was being
attacked by protesters, who then threw rocks at them, during a
protest demanding food a few blocks from Miraflores presidential
palace in Caracas, Venezuela, June 2, 2016.AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos

Recall-referendum backers gathered nearly 2 million signatures, well more than the
roughly 200,000 needed to initiate the process.Despite that response, the opposition has had trouble rallying its supporters, and its
legislative efforts have been stymied by government
resistance.

Moreover, the referendum-approval process is complex, and
political analysts have told AFP that the CNE could delay a
referendum until next year. At that point, if Maduro lost, he
would be replaced by his vice president.

Amid the partisan political wrangling, tensions in the
streets have stirred memories of the weeks long riots and
protests in spring 2014 that left 43 dead, as well as to the
Caracazo — a week of protests in the capital
city in 1989 that left hundreds, thousands by some accounts, dead.

A
woman confronts a National Guard soldier during a protest
demanding food, a few blocks from Miraflores presidential palace
in Caracas, Venezuela, June 2, 2016.AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos

The head of the Organization of American States — alleging "graver alterations of democratic
order" — has called for an emergency meeting to considered
suspending Venezuelan from the regional body, something the
government has condemned as a possible prelude to an "intervention."

The government and the opposition took the rare step of meeting through proxies last
week in order to mediate the political crisis, but it's not clear
how much patience many Venezuelans — about 70% of whom want Maduro out this year — have
left.

"Everyday people [are getting] closer to Miraflores
demanding food, soon they will be at the door of the palace
Nicolas Maduro!" opposition leader Henrique Capriles tweeted on Thursday.